Scott Walker & the Walker Brothers - 1965-1970

The 18 tracks on Scott Walker & the Walker Brothers -1965-1970 provide a survey of the career of this successful, yet charmingly out-of-step pop group. At a time when beat oriented groups like the Stones, the Kinks, and others were defining the sound of English pop music, The Walker Brothers, who took stylistic cues from the formalist pop songwriting of Burt Bacharach and the melodramatic mannerisms of crooners like Tony Bennett, were something of an anomaly. Leader Scott Walker’s powerful baritone bears an undeniable resemblance to Tom Jones’ but from the very outset of their career the Walker Brothers favored ambitious arrangements and thematically dark, sometimes even morbid material. This combination of theatricality and existential dread would have a significant impact on the development of artists like David Bowie, who would, early in his career perform a version of Jacque Brel’s “Amsterdam” that bears a close resemblance to the Walker Brothers’ version included here.